'Age of El Camino Real, King's Highway' by Clay Coppedge/Temple Daily Telegram

Age of El Camino Real, King's Highway

by Clay Coppedge

Temple Daily Telegram - September 12, 2005

The Trans-Texas Corridor won't be the first Texas road built primarily at the behest of

Spaniards. El Camino Real, often referred to as the King's Road and the Old San Antonio

Road, was forged by Spaniards after their government became concerned about the French

possibly moving in.

No one knows exactly how long the Camino Real, or King's Highway, has existed. It

probably began with the hooves of migrating buffalo, which the Indians followed, which

the Spanish followed and extended, which the European settlers - you get the idea.

'The Camino Real was the road that both Davy Crockett and Santa Anna - traveling from

different directions - traveled to reach the Alamo,' writer Stephen Harrigan notes in

the essay 'Highway One.'

The main road branched off into a series of sideroads and alternate trails, depending

on variables like weather, Indians and how high any particular river was running. A

1991 study identified no fewer than five different main routes, which were used at

various times.

One thing the trails held in common was their starting point at San Juan Bautista,

located at Guerrero, about five miles from the Rio Grande River. The routes converged

near San Antonio, which is how Mr. Crockett and Mr. Santa Anna met that fateful March

day in 1836.

Most of the scholarly research on El Camino Real has centered on that portion of the

road known today as the Old San Antonio Road. V.N. Zivley, the engineer the Texas

legislature hired in 1915 to find the route of the old road, identified part of it as

the part of State Highway 21, which runs through San Augustine, Nacogdoches, Alto,

Crockett and Bastrop and on into San Antonio.

Robert Hicks, a historian from Robertson County, believes the upper road, called El

Camino Real de los Tejas, was a more important road because it connected Spanish

capitals. At a conference in Cameron last November Hicks said that portion of the road

- the King's Highway - is Texas' greatest untold story. The conference was held in

Cameron partly because that portion of the road ran through Milam County.

'I think it was of greater historical importance than any of the other historical

trails you find,' he said, intentionally including the Lewis and Clark Trail and the

Oregon Trail in the statement.

'The Spanish missions here just didn't drop out of the sky,' he said. 'The missions out

here occurred because there had to be a trail. Spanish diaries tell a great story about

Milam County and this area, where they found one of the biggest Indians reservation,

Rancho Rio.'

Parts of the road are still visible, if you know where to look but most of it has been

paved over, built on, leveled or otherwise destroyed, but pieces of it can still be

seen. As Harrigan notes, most of the road has to be inferred.

The El Camino Real de los Tejas was designated a National Historic Trail on Oct. 18

when President Bush signed into law the El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historical

Trail Act. Milam caught the glow of historical interest in the trail with the April

symposium in Cameron that featured U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Tex, former Lady

Bird Johnson press secretary Liz Carpenter and nine other speakers, including college

professors, park service representatives and an archaeologist.

Mrs. Carpenter told the audience that the historical designation would develop Milam

County's pride and pocketbook. She quoted an old adage: 'Tourism is like a good cotton

crop, and twice as easy to pick.'

Joy Graham, former president of the Milam County Historical Association, has followed

the route of the upper road from Taylor to Norman's Crossing on the San Gabriel River

to Hare and on to Apache Pass off present day FM 908, not far from the site of 18th

century missions on the San Gabriel.

Milam County rancher and businessman Kit Worley, whose family has owned the riverside

property since the late 19th Century, is working to develop a park adjacent to the

river into a resort, part of which will be devoted to El Camino Real.

It's hard to say the El Camino Real went on forever but the memory of it will.

All articles from the Temple Daily Telegram are published with the permission of the
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Clay Coppedge
and the
Temple Daily Telegram